View source for Minimal music

{{Short description|Music using limited or minimal materials}}
{{distinguish|Minimal techno}}
{{original research|date=January 2020}}
{{Infobox music genre
| name              = Minimal music
| bgcolor           = 
| stylistic_origins = * [[Experimental music|Experimental]]
* [[serialism]]
* [[process music|process]]
* [[avant-garde music|avant-garde]]
* [[Electronic music|electronic]]
| cultural_origins  = Early 1960s, United States
| popularity        = 
| derivatives       = * [[Krautrock]]
* [[noise rock]]
* [[postminimalism]]
* [[totalism]]
| subgenres         = [[Drone music|Drone]]<ref name="coxwarner.301">Cox & Warner 2004, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC&pg=PA301 301] (in "Thankless Attempts at a Definition of Minimalism" by [[Kyle Gann]]): "Certainly many of the most famous minimalist pieces relied on a motorick 8th-note beat, although there were also several composers like Young and Niblock interested in drones with no beat at all. ... Perhaps “steady-beat-minimalism” is a criterion that could divide the minimalist repertoire into two mutually exclusive bodies of music, pulse-based music versus drone-based music.Steve Reich is thought of as the godfather of minimalism"</ref>
| fusiongenres      = 
| regional_scenes   = 
| local_scenes      = 
| other_topics      = 
}}
'''Minimal music''' (also called '''minimalism''')<ref name="However 1994">"Minimalism in music has been defined as an aesthetic, a style, and a technique, each of which has been a suitable description of the term at certain points in the development of minimal music. However, two of these definitions of minimalism—aesthetic and style—no longer accurately represent the music that is often given that label." Johnson 1994, 742.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A minimal guide to minimalism |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/9147162a-f36f-41df-a67a-9952d41c161e |website=[[BBC Music]] |date=September 2016 |access-date=30 January 2020}}</ref> is a form of [[art music]] or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include [[repetition (music)|repetitive]] patterns or [[pulse (music)|pulses]], steady [[drone (music)|drones]], [[consonance and dissonance|consonant harmony]], and reiteration of musical [[phrase (music)|phrases]] or smaller units. It may include features such as [[phase shift]]ing, resulting in what is termed [[phase music]], or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as [[process music]]. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-[[teleology|teleological]], and non-[[representation (arts)|representation]]al approach, and calls attention to the activity of [[listening]] by focusing on the internal processes of the music.<ref>Johnson 1994, 744.</ref>

The approach originated on the [[West Coast of the United States]] in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly around the [[Bay Area]], where [[La Monte Young]], [[Terry Riley]] and [[Steve Reich]] were studying and living at the time. After the three composers moved to the East Coast, their music became associated with the New York [[Downtown music|Downtown scene]] of the mid-1960s, where it was initially viewed as a form of [[experimental music]] called the ''New York Hypnotic School.''<ref>Kostelanetz and Flemming 1997, 114–16.</ref> In the [[Classical music|Western art music]] tradition, the American composers [[Moondog]], [[La Monte Young]], [[Terry Riley]], [[Steve Reich]], and [[Philip Glass]] are credited with being among the first to develop compositional techniques that exploit a minimal approach.<ref name=Mertens>Mertens 1983, 11.</ref><ref name="However 1994"/><ref>[[Michael Nyman]], writing in the preface of Mertens' book refers to the style as "so-called minimal music" (Mertens 1983, 8).</ref><ref>"The term 'minimal music' is generally used to describe a style of music that developed in America in the late 1960s and 1970s; and that was initially connected with the composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass" (Sitsky 2002, 361).</ref><ref name="young2000">[[La Monte Young|Young, La Monte]], [http://www.melafoundation.org/theatre.pdf "Notes on The Theatre of Eternal Music and ''The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys''"] (original [http://www.melafoundation.org/theatre.pdf PDF file] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140331015833/http://www.melafoundation.org/theatre.pdf |date=2014-03-31 }}), 2000, Mela Foundation, www.melafoundation.org—Historical account and musical essay where Young explains why he considers himself the originator of the style vs. Tony Conrad and John Cale.</ref> The movement originally involved dozens of composers, although only five (Young, Riley, Reich, Glass, and later [[John Adams (composer)|John Adams]]) emerged to become publicly associated with American minimal music; other lesser known pioneers included [[Dennis Johnson (composer)|Dennis Johnson]], [[Terry Jennings]], [[Richard Maxfield]], [[Pauline Oliveros]], [[Phill Niblock]], and [[James Tenney]]. In Europe, the music of [[Louis Andriessen]], [[Karel Goeyvaerts]], [[Michael Nyman]], [[Howard Skempton]], [[Éliane Radigue]], [[Gavin Bryars]], [[Steve Martland]], [[Peter Michael Hamel]], [[Henryk Górecki]], [[Arvo Pärt]] and [[John Tavener]] exhibits minimalist traits.

It is unclear where the term ''minimal music'' originates. Steve Reich has suggested that it is attributable to Michael Nyman, an assertion that two scholars, Jonathan Bernard, and Dan Warburton, have also made in writing. [[Philip Glass]] believes [[Tom Johnson (composer)|Tom Johnson]] coined the phrase.<ref>Kostelanetz and Flemming 1997, 114.</ref><ref name="Bernard 1993, 87 and 126">Bernard 1993, 87 and 126.</ref><ref>Warburton 1988, 141.</ref>

==Brief history==
The word "minimal" was perhaps first used in relation to music in 1968 by [[Michael Nyman]], who "deduced a recipe for the successful 'minimal-music' happening from the entertainment presented by [[Charlotte Moorman]] and [[Nam June Paik]] at the [[Institute of Contemporary Arts|ICA]]", which included a performance of ''Springen'' by [[Henning Christiansen]] and a number of unidentified performance-art pieces.<ref>Nyman 1968, 519.</ref> Nyman later expanded his definition of minimal music in his 1974 book ''Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond''. Tom Johnson, one of the few composers to self-identify as minimalist, also claims to have been first to use the word as new music critic for ''[[The Village Voice]]''. He describes "minimalism":

<blockquote>The idea of minimalism is much larger than many people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whiskey glasses. It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time. It includes pieces made exclusively from recordings of rivers and streams. It includes pieces that move in endless circles. It includes pieces that set up an unmoving wall of saxophone sound. It includes pieces that take a very long time to move gradually from one kind of music to another kind. It includes pieces that permit all possible pitches, as long as they fall between C and D. It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute.<ref>Johnson 1989, 5.</ref></blockquote>

Already in 1965 the art historian Barbara Rose had named La Monte Young's ''Dream Music'', [[Morton Feldman]]'s characteristically soft dynamics, and various unnamed composers "all, to a greater or lesser degree, indebted to [[John Cage]]" as examples of "minimal art",<ref>Rose 1965, 58, 65, 69.</ref> but did not specifically use the expression "minimal music".

The most prominent minimalist composers are [[La Monte Young]], [[Terry Riley]], [[Steve Reich]], [[Philip Glass]], [[John Coolidge Adams|John Adams]], and [[Louis Andriessen]].<ref>Potter 2001; Schönberger 2001.</ref> Others who have been associated with this compositional approach include [[Terry Jennings]], [[Gavin Bryars]], [[Tom Johnson (composer)|Tom Johnson]], [[Michael Nyman]], [[Michael Parsons (composer)|Michael Parsons]], [[Howard Skempton]], [[Dave Smith (composer)|Dave Smith]], [[James Tenney]], and [[John White (composer)|John White]].{{sfn|Anderson|2013}}<ref name="Walters">{{cite news |last1=Walters |first1=John L. |title=Gavin Bryars proves less is the new more |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/jan/24/artsfeatures4 |access-date=27 October 2021 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=24 January 2003 |language=en}}</ref> Among African-American composers, the minimalist aesthetic was embraced by figures such as jazz musician [[John Lewis (pianist)|John Lewis]] and multidisciplinary artist [[Julius Eastman]].<ref>{{cite book|ref=Giddins|author=Giddins, Gary|title=Visions of Jazz: The First Century|url=https://archive.org/details/visionsofjazzfir0000gidd|url-access=registration|place=New York|publisher= Oxford University Press|year=1998|isbn=0195132416}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/arts/music/minimalist-composer-julius-eastman-dead-for-26-years-crashes-the-canon.html|title=Minimalist Composer Julius Eastman, Dead for 26 Years, Crashes the Canon|work=The New York Times |date=28 October 2016|access-date=28 April 2018|via=NYTimes.com|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223092948/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/arts/music/minimalist-composer-julius-eastman-dead-for-26-years-crashes-the-canon.html|archive-date=23 February 2018|last1=Woolfe |first1=Zachary }}</ref>

The early compositions of Glass and Reich are somewhat austere, with little embellishment on the principal [[theme (music)|theme]]. These are works for small instrumental ensembles, of which the composers were often members. In Glass's case, these ensembles comprise organs, winds—particularly saxophones—and vocalists, while Reich's works have more emphasis on mallet and percussion instruments. Most of Adams's works are written for more traditional [[European classical music]] instrumentation, including full [[orchestra]], [[string quartet]], and solo piano.

The music of Reich and Glass drew early sponsorship from art galleries and museums, presented in conjunction with visual-art minimalists like [[Robert Morris (artist)|Robert Morris]] (in Glass's case), and [[Richard Serra]], [[Bruce Nauman]], and the filmmaker Michael Snow (as performers, in Reich's case).<ref name="Bernard 1993, 87 and 126"/>

==Early development==
The music of [[Moondog]] of the 1940s and '50s, which was based on [[counterpoint]] developing statically over steady pulses in often unusual time signatures influenced both Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Glass has written that he and Reich took Moondog's work "very seriously and understood and appreciated it much more than what we were exposed to at Juilliard".<ref>Glass 2007, 12.</ref>

[[La Monte Young]]'s 1958 composition ''[[Trio for Strings]]'' consists almost entirely of long [[musical tone|tones]] and [[rest (music)|rest]]s.<ref name="The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians">{{cite book |last1=Strickland |first1=Eric |title=The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians |date=2001}}</ref> It has been described as an origin point for minimalist music.<ref name="The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians"/>

One of the first minimalist compositions was ''November'' by Dennis Johnson, written in 1959. A work for solo piano that lasted around six hours, it demonstrated many features that would come to be associated with minimalism, such as diatonic tonality, phrase repetition, additive process, and duration. La Monte Young credits this piece as the inspiration for his own magnum opus, ''The Well-Tuned Piano.''<ref>Gann 2010, 481.</ref>

In 1960, [[Terry Riley]] wrote a string quartet in pure, uninflected C major.{{Clarify|date=June 2015|reason=Is this relevant to minimalism in some way?}} In the early 1960s, Riley made two electronic works using tape delay, ''Mescalin Mix'' (1960-1962) and ''The Gift'' (1963), which injected the idea of repetition into minimalism. In 1964, Riley's ''[[In C]]'' made persuasively engaging textures from the layered performance of repeated melodic phrases. The work is scored for any group of instruments and/or voices. Keith Potter writes "its fifty-three modules notated on a single page, this work has frequently been viewed as the beginning of musical minimalism."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Potter|first=Keith|date=2011|title=Terry Riley's In C (Review)|journal=Music and Letters|volume=92| issue = 1|pages=171|doi=10.1093/ml/gcq097}}</ref> Inspired by his work with Terry Riley on the premiere of ''In C'', [[Steve Reich]] produced three works—''[[It's Gonna Rain]]'' and ''[[Come Out (Reich)|Come Out]]'' for tape, and ''[[Piano Phase]]'' for live performers—that introduced the idea of phase shifting, or allowing two identical phrases or sound samples played at slightly different speeds to repeat and slowly go out of phase with each other. Starting in 1968 with ''1 + 1'', Philip Glass wrote a series of works that incorporated additive process (form based on sequences such as 1, 1 2, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4) into the repertoire of minimalist techniques; these works included ''Two Pages'', ''Music in Fifths'', ''Music in Contrary Motion'', and others. Glass was influenced by Ravi Shankar and Indian music from the time he was assigned a film score transcription of music by Ravi Shankar into western notation. He realized that in the West time is divided like a ''slice of bread''; Indians and other cultures take small units and string them together.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/20th/minimalism.html|title=Minimalism|website=public.wsu.edu|access-date=28 April 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151213062323/http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/20th/minimalism.html|archive-date=13 December 2015}}</ref>

Some of [[Jean Sibelius]]'s musical works have been seen as foreshadowing minimalism. This is perhaps best exemplified by some of his [[tone poem]]s, such as the repetitive rhythmic patterns and gradual development of musical ideas in ''[[Nightride and Sunrise]]'',<ref name="Fuse">Blumhofer, J.: [https://artsfuse.org/141749/rethinking-the-repertoire-8-sibeliuss-night-ride-and-sunrise/ Rethinking the Repertoire #8 – Sibelius’s “Night Ride and Sunrise”]. The Arts Fuse, 5 March 2016. </ref> ''[[The Bard (Sibelius)|The Bard]]'' and ''[[Luonnotar (Sibelius)|Luonnotar]]''.<ref name="Gramo">Bratby, R.: [https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/the-music-of-jean-sibelius-chamber-domaine The Music of Jean Sibelius]. Gramophpone</ref> The British conductor Thomas Kemp has suggested that Sibelius might be, in fact, viewed as a proto-minimalist.<ref name="Gramo"/> Among contemporary minimalists composers his influence can be heard, among others, in [[Arvo Pärt]],<ref name="Gramo"/> [[John Adams (composer)|John Adams]] and [[Philip Glass]]. Adams in particular has a strong affinity towards Sibelius, citing him as a substantial influence on his compositional style. Notably, Sibelius's [[Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius)|Seventh Symphony]] provided a model for the ultimate form of Adams's ''[[Doctor Atomic|Doctor Atomic Symphony]]''.<ref>May, T.: [https://www.juilliard.edu/news/136846/john-adams-yin-and-yang-his-musical-life John Adams on the Yin and Yang of His Musical Life]. Juilliard Journal, Nov 19, 2018.</ref> Among Glass's compositions, his opera ''[[The Voyage (opera)|The Voyage]]'' has been described as having a particularly Sibelian quality.<ref>Schwartz, K. Robert (1996): Minimalists. 20th-Century Composers Series. London: Phaidon Press</ref>

==Style==
According to Richard E. Rodda, {{" '}}Minimalist' music is based upon the [[repetition (music)|repetition]] of slowly changing [[Common chord (music)|common chords]] [chords that are diatonic to more than one key, or else triads, either just major, or major and minor—see: [[common tone (scale)|common tone]]] in steady rhythms, often overlaid with a lyrical melody in long, arching phrases...[It] utilizes repetitive melodic patterns, consonant harmonies, motoric rhythms, and a deliberate striving for aural beauty."<ref>Rodda, 2 & 4.</ref> Timothy Johnson holds that, as a style, minimal music is primarily continuous in form, without disjunct sections. A direct consequence of this is an uninterrupted texture made up of interlocking rhythmic patterns and pulses. It is in addition marked by the use of bright timbres and an energetic manner. Its harmonic sonorities are distinctively simple, usually diatonic, often consist of familiar triads and seventh chords, and are presented in a slow harmonic rhythm. Johnson disagrees with Rodda, however, in finding that minimal music's most distinctive feature is the complete absence of extended melodic lines. Instead, there are only brief melodic segments, thrusting the organization, combination, and individual characteristics of short, repetitive rhythmic patterns into the foreground.<ref>Johnson 1994, 748.</ref>

[[Leonard B. Meyer]] described minimal music in 1994:
<blockquote>Because there is little sense of goal-directed motion, [minimal] music does not seem to move from one place to another. Within any musical segment, there may be some sense of direction, but frequently the segments fail to lead to or imply one another. They simply follow one another.<ref>Meyer 1994, 326.</ref></blockquote>
As [[Kyle Gann]] puts it, the tonality used in minimal music lacks "goal-oriented European association[s]".<ref>Gann 1998.</ref>

[[David Cope]] lists the following qualities as possible characteristics of minimal music:<ref>Cope 1997.</ref>
* [[Silence]]
* [[Conceptual art|Concept]] music
* Brevity
* Continuities: requiring slow [[modulation (music)|modulation]] of one or more [[parameter]]s [implying length]
* Phase and [[pattern]] music, including repetition [implying length]

Famous pieces that use this technique are the ''number'' section of Glass' ''[[Einstein on the Beach]]'', Reich's [[Tape loop|tape-loop]] pieces ''[[Come Out (Reich)|Come Out]]'' and ''[[It's Gonna Rain]]'', and Adams' ''[[Shaker Loops]]''.

==Critical reception==
Robert Fink offers a summary of some notable critical reactions to minimal music: {{Blockquote|... perhaps it can be understood as a kind of social pathology, as an aural sign that American audiences are primitive and uneducated ([[Pierre Boulez]]); that kids nowadays just want to get [[Short-term effects of cannabis|stoned]] ([[Donal Henahan]] and [[Harold Schonberg]] in the New York Times); that traditional Western cultural values have eroded in the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|liberal wake of the 1960s]] ([[Samuel Lipman]]); that minimalist repetition is dangerously seductive propaganda, akin to [[Hitler]]'s speeches and [[advertising]] ([[Elliott Carter]]); even that the [[commodity-fetishism]] of modern capitalism has fatally trapped the autonomous self in minimalist [[narcissism]] ([[Christopher Lasch]]).<ref>Fink 2005, 19</ref>}}

Elliott Carter maintained a consistent critical stance against minimalism and in 1982 he went so far as to compare it to [[fascism]] in stating that "one also hears constant repetition in the speeches of Hitler and in advertising. It has its dangerous aspects."<ref name="Fink 2005, 63">Fink 2005, 63.</ref> When asked in 2001 how he felt about minimal music he replied that "we are surrounded by a world of minimalism. All that junk mail I get every single day repeats; when I look at television I see the same advertisement, and I try to follow the movie that's being shown, but I'm being told about [[cat food]] every five minutes. That is minimalism."<ref>Fink 2005, 62.</ref> Fink notes that Carter's general loathing of the music is representative of a form of musical snobbery that dismisses repetition more generally. Carter has even criticised the use of repetition in the music of [[Edgard Varèse]] and [[Charles Ives]], stating that "I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."<ref name="Fink 2005, 63"/>

[[Ian MacDonald]] claimed that minimalism is the "passionless, sexless and emotionally blank soundtrack of the [[Machine Age]], its utopian selfishness no more than an expression of human passivity in the face of [[mass-production]] and [[Nuclear weapon|The Bomb]]".{{sfn|MacDonald|2003|p={{Page needed|date=March 2010}}}}

Steve Reich has argued that such criticism is misplaced. In 1987 he stated that his compositional output reflected the popular culture of postwar American consumer society because the "elite European-style [[serial music]]" was simply not representative of his cultural experience. Reich stated that {{Blockquote|[[Stockhausen]], [[Berio]], and Boulez were portraying in very honest terms what it was like to pick up the pieces after World War II. But for some American in 1948 or 1958 or 1968—in the real context of tailfins, [[Chuck Berry]] and millions of burgers sold—to pretend that instead we're really going to have the darkbrown [[Angst]] of [[Vienna]] is a lie, a musical lie.{{sfn|Fink|2005|p=118}}}}

[[Kyle Gann]], himself a minimalist composer, has argued that minimalism represented a predictable return to simplicity after the development of an earlier style had run its course to extreme and unsurpassable complexity.<ref>Gann 1997, 184–85.</ref> Parallels include the advent of the simple Baroque [[Figured bass|continuo]] style following elaborate [[Renaissance]] [[polyphony]] and the simple early classical [[symphony]] following [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]]'s monumental advances in Baroque [[counterpoint]]. In addition, critics have often overstated the simplicity of even early minimalism. Michael Nyman has pointed out that much of the charm of [[Steve Reich]]'s early music had to do with perceptual phenomena that were not actually played, but resulted from subtleties in the phase-shifting process.<ref>Nyman 1974, 133–34.</ref> In other words, the music often does not sound as simple as it looks.

In Gann's further analysis, during the 1980s minimalism evolved into less strict, more complex styles such as [[postminimalism]] and [[Totalism (music)|totalism]], breaking out of the strongly framed repetition and stasis of early minimalism, and enriching it with a confluence of other rhythmic and structural influences.{{sfn|Gann|2001}}

==In popular music==
{{Redirect|Minimal pop|other avant-garde pop music subgenres|Experimental pop|and|Avant-pop}}
Minimal music has had some influence on developments in popular music.<ref name="Cagney2012"/> The [[experimental rock]] act [[The Velvet Underground]] had a connection with the New York down-town scene from which minimal music emerged, rooted in the close working relationship of [[John Cale]] and [[La Monte Young]], the latter influencing Cale's work with the band.<ref>{{AllMusic|last=Unterberger|first=Richie|class=artist|id=mn0000224638|tab=biography|title=John Cale}}</ref> Terry Riley's album ''[[A Rainbow in Curved Air]]'' (1969) was released during the era of [[psychedelia]] and [[flower power]], becoming the first minimalist work to have crossover success, appealing to rock and jazz audiences.<ref name="Cagney2012">{{cite web|last1=Cagney|first1=Liam|title=Classical Connections Minimalism meets Pop|url=http://www.sinfinimusic.com/uk/features/series/classical-connections/minimalism-meets-pop|publisher=[[Sinfini Music]]|date=August 23, 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303141708/http://www.sinfinimusic.com/uk/features/series/classical-connections/minimalism-meets-pop|archive-date=March 3, 2016}}</ref> Music theorist [[Daniel Harrison (musicologist)|Daniel Harrison]] coined [[the Beach Boys]]' ''[[Smiley Smile]]'' (1967) an experimental work of "protominimal rock", elaborating: "[The album] can almost be considered a work of [[art music]] in the [[Western classical tradition]], and its innovations in the musical language of rock can be compared to those that introduced [[atonality|atonal]] and other nontraditional techniques into that classical tradition."{{sfn|Harrison|1997|loc=47}} The development of specific experimental rock genres such as [[krautrock]], [[space rock]] (from the 1980s), [[noise rock]], and [[post-rock]] was influenced by minimal music.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sandford|first1=Jon|title=Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture|date=2013|publisher=Routledge Press|pages=353|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TuMsBgAAQBAJ&q=Krautrock+minimalism&pg=PA353|isbn=9781136816031}}</ref><ref>{{AllMusic|title=Space rock|class=style|id=ma0000012255}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Blush|first=Steven|author-link=Steven Blush|title=New York Rock: From the Rise of The Velvet Underground to the Fall of CBGB|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ezTpDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA266|year=2016|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|isbn=978-1-250-08361-6|page=266}}</ref><ref>{{AllMusic|class=style|id=ma0000002790|title=Post-Rock}}</ref>

Philip Sherburne has suggested that noted similarities between minimal forms of [[electronic dance music]] and American minimal music could easily be accidental. Much of the music technology used in dance music has traditionally been designed to suit loop-based compositional methods, which may explain why certain stylistic features of styles such as [[minimal techno]] sound similar to minimal art music.{{sfnp|Sherburne|2006|p=322}} One group who clearly did have an awareness of the American minimal tradition is the British [[Ambient music|ambient]] act [[The Orb]]. Their 1990 production "[[Little Fluffy Clouds]]" features a sample from Steve Reich's work ''[[Electric Counterpoint]]'' (1987).<ref name=Emmerson>Emmerson 2007, 68.</ref> Further acknowledgement of Steve Reich's possible influence on electronic dance music came with the release in 1999 of the ''[[Reich Remixed]]''<ref>[http://www.discogs.com/release/27570 Reich Remixed:] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111222845/http://www.discogs.com/release/27570 |date=2012-11-11 }} album track listing at www.discogs.com</ref> tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as [[DJ Spooky]], [[Mantronik]], [[Ken Ishii]], and [[Coldcut]], among others.<ref name=Emmerson/>

==Minimalist composers==
{{Main|List of minimalist composers}}

==See also==
* [[Holy minimalism]]
* [[Ostinato]]
* [[Postminimalism]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Virginia|year=2013|chapter=Systems and Other Minimalism in Britain|title=The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music|editor1=Keith Potter|editor2=[[Kyle Gann]]|editor3=Pwyll ap Siôn|pages=80–106|location=Farnham, Surrey|publisher=Ashgate|isbn=978-1-4094-3549-5}}
* Bernard, Jonathan W. 1993. "The Minimalist Aesthetic in the Plastic Arts and in Music". ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'' 31, no. 1 (Winter): 86–132. {{JSTOR|833043}}
* Bernard, Jonathan W. 2003. "Minimalism, Postminimalism, and the Resurgence of Tonality in Recent American Music". ''[[American Music (journal)|American Music]]'' 21, no. 1 (Spring): 112–133. {{JSTOR|3250558}}
* [[David Cope|Cope, David]]. 1997. ''Techniques of the Contemporary Composer''. New York, New York: Schirmer Books. {{ISBN|0-02-864737-8}}.
* [[Simon Emmerson (composer)|Emmerson, Simon]]. 2007. ''Music, Electronic Media, and Culture''. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers.
* {{cite book|last=Fink|first=Robert|year=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=khosyjk0ShYC|title=Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice|location=Berkeley|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=0-520-24036-7}}
* [[Kyle Gann|Gann, Kyle]]. 1997. ''American Music in the Twentieth Century''. Schirmer. {{ISBN|0-02-864655-X}}.
* Gann, Kyle. 1987. "Let X = X: Minimalism vs. Serialism." ''[[The Village Voice]]'' (24 February): 76.
* Gann, Kyle. 1998. "[http://www.kylegann.com/postminimalism.html A Forest from the Seeds of Minimalism: An Essay on Postminimal and Totalist Music]". KyleGann.com.
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Gann|2001}}|reference=Gann, Kyle. 2001. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110604040811/http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=1536 Minimal Music, Maximal Impact: Minimalism's Immediate Legacy: Postminimalism]". ''[[New Music Box]]'' (November 1) (Accessed 4 February 2012).}}
* Gann, Kyle. 2006. ''Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice''. Berkeley: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-520-22982-7}}.
* Gann, Kyle. 2010. "Reconstructing November". ''[[American Music (journal)|American Music]]'' 28, no. 4 (Winter): 481–491. {{doi|10.5406/americanmusic.28.4.0481 }}
* [[Peter Garland (composer)|Garland, Peter]], and [[La Monte Young]]. 2001. "Jennings, Terry". ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (musicologist)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan.
*Girard, Johan. 2010. ''Répétitions: L'esthétique musicale de Terry Riley, Steve Reich et Philip Glass''. Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle. {{ISBN|978-2-87854-494-7}}
* [[Philip Glass|Glass, Philip]]. 2007. "Preface". In Scotto, Robert M. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ogMYAQAAIAAJ Moondog, the Viking of 6th Avenue: The Authorized Biography]''. Los Angeles: Process. {{ISBN|978-0-9760822-8-6}}.
* Gotte, Ulli. 2000. ''Minimal Music: Geschichte, Asthetik, Umfeld''. Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft, 138. Wilhelmshaven: Noetzel. {{ISBN|3-7959-0777-2}}.
* {{cite book|last=Harrison|first=Daniel|author-link=Daniel Harrison (musicologist)|editor1-last=Covach|editor1-first=John|editor2-last=Boone|editor2-first=Graeme M.|title=Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis|date=1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199880126|chapter-url=http://www.lipscomb.umn.edu/rock/docs/Harrison1997_BeachBoys.pdf|chapter=After Sundown: The Beach Boys' Experimental Music|pages=33–57}}
* Johnson, Timothy A. 1994. "Minimalism: Aesthetic, Style, or Technique?" ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'' 78, no. 4 (Winter): 742–73. {{JSTOR|742508}}
* [[Tom Johnson (composer)|Johnson, Tom]]. 1989. ''The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972–1982 – A Collection of Articles Originally Published by [[The Village Voice]]''. Eindhoven, Netherlands: [[Het Apollohuis]]. {{ISBN|90-71638-09-X}}.
* [[Richard Kostelanetz|Kostelanetz, Richard]], and R. Flemming. 1997. ''Writings on Glass: Essays, Interviews, Criticism''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press; New York: Schirmer Books.
* Linke, Ulrich. 1997. ''Minimal Music: Dimensionen eines Begriffs''. Folkwang-Texte vol. 13. Essen: Die blaue Eule. {{ISBN|3-89206-811-9}}.
* Lovisa, Fabian R. 1996. ''Minimal-music: Entwicklung, Komponisten, Werke''. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
* {{cite book|last=MacDonald|first=Ian|year=2003|title=The People's Music|location=London|publisher=Pimlico Publishing|isbn=1-84413-093-2}}
* Mertens, Wim. 1983. ''American Minimal Music: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass''. Translated by J. Hautekiet; preface by [[Michael Nyman]]. London: Kahn & Averill; New York: Alexander Broude.  {{ISBN|0-900707-76-3}}
* [[Leonard B. Meyer|Meyer, Leonard B.]] 1994. ''Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture'', second edition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|0-226-52143-5}}
* [[Michael Nyman|Nyman, Michael]]. 1968. "Minimal Music". ''[[The Spectator]]'' 221, no. 7320 (11 October): 518–519.
* Nyman, Michael. 1974. ''Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond''. London: Studio Vista {{ISBN|0-289-70182-1}}; reprinted 1999, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-65383-5}}.
* [[Michael Parsons (composer)|Parsons, Michael]]. 1974. "Systems in Art and Music". ''[[The Musical Times]]'' 117, no. 1604 (October): 815–818. {{JSTOR|960175}}
* Perlein, Gilbert, and Bruno Corà (eds). 2000. ''Yves Klein: Long Live the Immaterial!'' Catalog of an exhibition held at the Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain, Nice, April 28 – September 4, 2000, and the Museo Pecci, Prato, September 23, 2000 – January 10, 2001. New York: Delano Greenidge Editions, 2000, {{ISBN|978-0-929445-08-3}}.
* Potter, Keith. 2000. ''Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass''. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-48250-X}}.
* Potter, Keith. 2001. "Minimalism". ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', second edition, edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (musicologist)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music.
* Rodda, Richard E. (1999). Liner notes, ''Violin Concertos of John Adams & Philip Glass'', [[Robert McDuffie]] (violin). Telarc, CD-80494.
* [[Barbara Rose|Rose, Barbara]]. 1965. "ABC Art". ''Art in America'' 53, no. 5 (October–November): 57–69.
* Schönberger, Elmer. 2001. "Andriessen: (4) Louis Andriessen". ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', second edition, edited by [[Stanley Sadie]] and [[John Tyrrell (musicologist)|John Tyrrell]]. London: Macmillan; New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music.
* Schwarz, K. Robert. 1996. ''Minimalists''. 20th Century Composers Series. London: Phaidon. {{ISBN|0-7148-3381-9}}.
* {{cite thesis |last1=Shelley |first1=Peter James |date=2013 |publisher=[[University of Washington]] |degree=Ph.D |url=http://hdl.handle.net/1773/24092|title=Rethinking Minimalism: At the Intersection of Music Theory and Art Criticism}}
* {{cite book|last=Sherburne |first=Philip |date=2006 |chapter=Digital Discipline: Minimalism in House and Techno |title=Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music |editor1-last=Cox |editor1-first=Christoph |editor2-last=Warner |editor2-first=Daniel |location=New York |publisher=Continuum |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC&pg=PA319 |isbn=978-0-8264-1615-5 |pages=319–326}}
* [[Larry Sitsky|Sitsky, Larry]]. 2002. ''Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|0313017239}}
* Strickland, Edward. 1993. ''Minimalism: Origins''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. {{ISBN|0-253-35499-4}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-253-21388-6}} (pbk, corrected and somewhat revised printing, 2000). Chapter T, pp.&nbsp;241–256, reprinted as Strickland 1997.
* Strickland, Edward. 1997. "Minimalism: T (1992)". In ''Writings on Glass: Essays, Interviews, Criticism'', edited by [[Richard Kostelanetz]] and Robert Flemming, 113–130. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press; New York: Schirmer Books. {{ISBN|0-520-21491-9}}. Reprint of a chapter from Strickland 1993.
* Sweeney-Turner, Steve. 1995. "Weariness and Slackening in the Miserably Proliferating Field of Posts." ''[[The Musical Times]]'' 136, no. 1833 (November): 599–601. {{JSTOR|1003498}}
* Warburton, Dan. 1988. "A Working Terminology for Minimal Music." ''[[Intégral (journal)|Intégral]]'' 2:135–159. {{JSTOR|40213909}}
{{div col end}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | author=Levaux, Christophe | title=We Have Always Been Minimalist: The Construction and Triumph of a Musical Style | publisher=University of California Press | location=Oakland (Ca.) | year=2020 | translator=Rose Vekony | isbn=978-0-520-29526-1 }}

==External links==
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051022102140/http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/genresearch.pl?genre=minimalist Art of the States: minimalist]}} minimalist works by American composers, including audio samples.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060211134326/http://arted.osu.edu/160/11_MinimalMusic.php Art and Music Since 1945: Introduction to Minimal Music], from [[Ohio State University]]'s Department of Art Education.
* [http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=31tp00 Minimal Music, Maximal Impact] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110804213027/http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=31tp00 |date=2011-08-04 }}, by [[Kyle Gann]], with a more comprehensive list of early minimalists.
*Johnson, Tom. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=FeNLAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA47&dq=terry%20riley%20tom%20johnson%20village%20voice&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false Changing the Meaning of Static]", ''The Village Voice''. September 7, 1972.
::The article that coined the term. 

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